Never Did Run Smooth
by KrisEleven
Summary: A collection of one-shots from my submissions to Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN. "The courses of true love never did run smooth" - William Shakespeare. Their relationship from Niva and Isas to Rosethorn and Crane, through friendship, rivalry, and a lasting love.
1. First Meeting

"Novice Isas?"

He looked up from his notes at the call of Dedicate Carmine. Blinking as he focused on something other than the pages of his book and the papers he was filling for the first time in hours, he stood as she approached.

"Yes, Dedicate?"

"This is our new student. She is a novice here at Winding Circle, now." For the first time, Isas focused on the girl standing behind the dedicate. She was perhaps a year or two younger than his seventeen years and was short and skinny, with long dark reddish hair that hung down across her shoulders in braids. Her brown eyes were wide, though her chin and mouth were set stubbornly and she met his gaze squarely.

As Dedicate Carmine rushed off to intercept two students she saw with open trays too close to her precious notes, Isas stuck a hand out over the desk. She looked at it a moment, suspiciously, before she shook it. She had calluses on her palm, but her skin was soft.

"I'm Isas," he said.

"Niva."


	2. Rivalry

A/N The second of this set of drabbles/oneshots, still set while they were novices at Winding Circle together. Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN is currently in its break between the first and second round, a perfect time to head over and check it all out! A link can be found at the top of my profile page.

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><p>She was used to being the best in classes without really trying. Where many of the pupils she was being taught with were just learning their magic, she had been growing things and defending her father's farm since she was old enough to be carried through the fields while reaching the tips of the plants with her childish fingers. She knew magic. She lived plants. Niva had always been the best in Open Circle temple, and so hardly even thought about it.<p>

Then she arrived at Winding Circle, partly because it was obvious her magic was beyond the scope of her mostly academic or non-mage teachers in Anderran and partly because of her father and brothers' daily petitions for her return. As if she was _property_ that belonged to them. Niva shook her head and concentrated on her notes.

The point was, she arrived at Winding Circle expecting some of the other students she would be working with to be more advanced than her classmates at Open Circle. She had _not_ expected to find Isas fer Yorvan and his infuriating know-it-all presence.

She scowled as she listened to the lecture. She had been using her magic since she was a child in her father's arms. No noble was going to outdo her for long. She would teach him exactly who he was dealing with... and put this silly competition to rest once and for all.


	3. Bet You Can't

A/N Still at Winding Circle, and the beginning of their specialties in the study of disease that gets them sent to Lightsbridge.

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><p>"I bet you can't..."<p>

Those were her words. The ones that grew the classroom rivalry between them into something much bigger. "I bet you can't figure it out before I can," she had said, referring to the perfume of one of his noble friend's frequent visitors.

Or perhaps it was his line: "if you_ suppose_ you can..." Always with that emphasis that said he believed the opposite. He would never meet her eyes as he pretended to be thoughtful of her abilities. It made her angry even as she knew he was teasing her. "If you _suppose _you can figure it out before I can," he would say as they examined a scent ball or one of Gorse's stews, or a cough syrup snatched from the Water Temple's stores.

They didn't realize that one dedicate was keeping a close eye on their competition because the rest of the world didn't have the hold that "I bet you can't" and "If you suppose you can" held on them.

The combinations grew more and more complex, and the magic grew more and more sophisticated, and they were watched, but they had eyes only for each other.


	4. Attitude

A/N We've skipped forward some time, now, and they have been sent to Lightsbridge to study.

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><p><em>I'm sorry 'bout the attitude I need to give when I'm with you but no one else will take this shit from me.<em> Long Day, Matchbox Twenty.

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><p>Isas was fuming as he strode the hallways of Lightsbridge looking for her.<p>

_How _dare _that overbearing, arrogant daughter of a _farmer_ think that she can talk to me that way in front of Master Vinenamer, let alone a full lecture hall of students?_ _This is the _last_ time I let her get away with that disrespectful, biting, _outrageous _attitude; does she know who I _am_? _His righteous fury lasted him until he had marched into the small, open dining hall used by the beginning students. A few young men he boarded with called to him from a nearby table_,_ but he waved them off and searched over the heads of the chatting, laughing, rough-housing student body until he found her.

She was sitting alone at a small table he knew had legs so uneven they tipped every time the weight shifted, causing untended fruit or quills to roll off onto the floor. She ate while ignoring those around her completely. However, with the contrast between her and the jovial community of students who ignored her back, Isas couldn't help but understand that her defiant independence could be seen as loneliness, her bristling temper a cover for insecurity, and her snappy defensiveness something that drove those less used to her ways away, leaving her to sit at a tipsy lunch-table alone; too proud to walk away when it was clear no one would acknowledge her.

Isas made his way to her table and sat. Before she could say anything to proclaim how much she _didn't_ want his company, he said "Your premise for argument today was _completely_ incorrect. I have no idea why Master Vinenamer would allow such obvious fallacies to disgrace lecture hall."

The expression on her face shifted as she took up the argument they had left behind in the classroom in earnestness, and Isas had a moment of relief before he was distracted by the _absolutely disrespectful_ way she was framing her opinion on his intelligence.

The self-assured scholar was someone he could deal with from Niva; he was used to the barbs that framed her theories by now. He pretended to forget that brief flash of thankfulness when he had chosen her table as he cut her off to explain exactly _why_ that would _never work_ in true academic circles, and take care to watch your language...


	5. Impossible

A/N This is still at Lightsbridge, based off Rosethorn's obvious dislike of the school in the Circle books.

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><p>"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "You don't <em>know<em> any such thing."

"You have been absolutely impossible for months," Isas replied. "And you need –"

"Impossible for _months_?" she laughed. "Isas, I have _always_ been impossible." She got a slight smile for that, but there was still that touch of worry behind his dark eyes. "Don't _fret_. It is not a trait I find attractive in my friends."

"You will tell me if it gets worse?" he asked. It was always difficult to distract him, but she wouldn't be drawn into admitting that she was having problems adjusting to Lightsbridge. Not to Isas, who fit in as if he had been born among all these cold, grey stones.

"I will tell you if my imaginary problems seem to be increasing, yes. _Now _will you leave me be?"

She was sad when he did so. Looking around at the dead stone closing in around her, she resisted the urge to close her eyes and wish herself home.


	6. Daughter

_No one's daughter; allow me that... and I can't let go of your hand. _Cold Water, Damien Rice.

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><p>Isas only heard about it, when the letter came, because the first-year who had overheard thought that because they <em>argued<em> it meant that they didn't like each other... and although that was partly true, he found himself frowning as the young man related the information with something approaching amusement.

"Eavesdropping is the very basest form of entertainment," he informed the other student coldly. "And spreading gossip about a woman is something only the weakest of men indulge in. _If_ you will excuse me."

He thought the very obvious scorn he had shown would grant Niva and her news privacy for as long as anything remained private on campus... which was to say it would be measured in days, perhaps, instead of hours.

There was only one place she would go. It was a small corner that held the only speck of green life in the winding stone alleys and courtyards that made up Lightsbridge campus. She could often be found there, touching the ivy growing on the walls around her, and increasing the rumours that she was more than a little cracked. Isas, who understood ambient magic, was the only one who avoided the place to give her privacy, rather than out of fear of her sharp tongue.

When he turned the corner under the arched overpass, he was surprised to see her sitting on a cold stone bench, staring at the blank stone wall opposite her listlessly. The ivy behind her seemed to have wilted, hanging brown and drab from the thin vines binding them periously to the stability of the wall.

Isas sat beside her and waited.

"I hated everything about that place," she said finally, just as his fingers, toes and legs were beginning to go numb with cold. "I even hated him, by the end of it all." She closed her eyes and Isas was shocked to see the tears building on her dark eyelashes.

"You couldn't have stopped it –"

"I did before. They attacked our farm once, and my magic saved us. But I couldn't _stand_ being tied there, being his pet mage instead of his daughter... I would give up every _ounce _of freedom I have to bring him back to life," she whispered, her voice breaking.

There was nothing he could say. Her hand was resting on the bench beside his, and Isas reached out and touched it tentatively with his fingertips. She flipped her hand over and grasped his tightly.

They would sit in the cold like that, together, for a long time.


	7. Relearning Love

_All I ever learned from love is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. But it's not a cry that you hear tonight, it's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the light. _Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen.

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><p>He reached out a hand to touch her cheek and his eyes followed his fingertips from cheekbone to chin, while her gaze was locked on him.<p>

Niva had never been someone who the boys flocked to; she had made sure of that. She didn't want the attention of others. She knew very well what it brought (her brother screaming as the raider cut him down, her best friend's dead eyes, her father's blame and that terrifying promise that he would never. Let. Her. Go), and she wanted nothing to do with it.

But this was Isas. He was the one who argued with her, no matter how badly she lost her temper. He watched over her, was there to hold her hand when news of her father's death came, was the one who remembered how much she hated the cold, smiled as they found answers to puzzles, shared the excitement that magic and learning meant...

Niva didn't let anyone close, because she had never been able to trust anyone before. Isas looked up from his fingers that were cupping her cheek and met her eyes and she saw someone who loved her for _her_, not in spite of her temper, or because of her magic, but for all of her.

She leaned forward when he did and kissed him, gently.

This was Isas. And she loved him for all of him.


	8. Nobody's Watching

_We might kiss when we are alone. If nobody's watching, I might take you home._ Delicate, Damien Rice.

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><p>The evening was longer than Isas thought it would be. It was one of the rarest of occasions when Niva had actually joined the group of students in their night time romps through the city, and he found himself distracted. She argued with Perem about something they had done in class that day, smiled at something Howe interjected, when it supported her argument, and even laughed as two of their group members ran from an irate Logain.<p>

She paused under the torchlight from a nearby inn and the red in her hair caught his gaze.

He realised that she as paused for him, when one eyebrow rose and her mouth twitched in amused impatience. He had stopped to gaze at her.

Hurrying to catch up, he fell in step beside her.

"Isas, your friends have left us behind."

"They're easily distracted," he replied. "They wouldn't notice if they lost us."

She made an interested noise. They walked a few more steps before she turned and tugged his arm. He stumbled into the alley after her, falling against her as she pressed him into the brick wall.

"Good," she said, grinning. He held on to her tightly as they kissed.


	9. Just a Dream

Niva still woke up from nightmares of the raiders' attack on her father's farm. Yes, the fighting and blood and death had been terrifying to her fourteen-year-old self, and some nights she woke up, sweating, from a dream in which they had managed to take her away, or reliving the moment when she saw her best friend, Ania, for the first time after they were done with her.

More often, though, her dream took on a different turn. She didn't wake up in a sweat from these dreams and have to light a lamp until the shakes had passed. Instead, she laid in bed and felt the darkness and sadness roll in around her like a draft.

In those dreams, she asked her father why the raiders had came, why Ania had to go through what she did, why her oldest brother was dead and he turned to her and said that it was because of her magic, it was because of her, and she would spend the rest of her life repaying him for what they had lost.

When she opened her eyes to the darkness, the worst part was that she remembered it wasn't just a dream.

Sometimes the anger with him for putting that on her kept her up for hours. Most of the time, though, it was guilt that kept her awake until the sun came up.

The first time she woke up from one of these dreams in Isas's bed, he sat up beside her and took her into his arms and told her that it was just a dream.

She wanted to tell him that it wasn't. It had happened.

Somehow, though, lying in the dark with his arms around her and his lips against her forehead... it didn't matter.

It was just a dream.


	10. Hope for Me

_Reach down your hand in your pocket, pull out some hope for me. It's been a long day (always). _Long Day, Matchbox Twenty.

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><p>He could see strips of light between his fingers as he cradled his head between his hands, and he closed them into fists over his eyes to block it out.<p>

It had been six days since they had buried Mountstrider and tried to return to their work on the human essences only to be bogged down yet again, and he couldn't see any light now.

"I thought I would find you out here, slacking."

"Leave me be, Rosethorn."

"I would, gladly, but - _if_ you haven't noticed - there is still this thing called _work _to do around here and I had assumed we wished to deal with that before we relaxed."

He told him exactly where he could shove her assumptions.

"Oh, isn't _that_ noble of you."

"Xiyun is _dead_," he snapped, feeling the shock of his temper even as he glared across the garden at the woman who was prodding at him. "None of us have the experience he did, none of us have the full comprehension of the work that came before, we don't have full access to his notes, we cannot... we cannot_ do_ this without him."

"We have three _years_ of experience, we learned everything he could have taught us, we can get a _translator_ for the notes, you fool, and we _will_ do this _because_ of him. He didn't do all this work for us to give up."

Her dark eyes shone with passion as she stepped forward and pulled him close to her. "We can do this together, Crane. We just need to stick to it."

He leaned forward to set his forehead against hers. And even though his eyes were closed, he could still see the shine of daylight.


	11. Who I Am

_I don't know who I am, who I am without you. All I know is that I should. _Where I Stood, Missy Higgins.

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><p>It had been a long time since she had thought of herself without thinking of him, too.<p>

Rosethorn could hardly relate to the scared teenager who had arrived at the gates of Winding Circle in novice's robes, fresh from the tiny Open Circle temple in Northern Anderran.

She had soon been introduced to the other talented plant mage, and they had been apart rarely ever since. Even after the friendly rivalry had lost the friendship when they were sent to Lightsbridge to study disease, he was always there. Their connection was only more intense once the rivalry sparked into romance, and then they worked together for eight years on the human essences... It was like they were part of the same plot of land, had grown together so long that roots and branches and trunks were tangled until only the most careful eye could tell one from the other.

And that was the problem. She couldn't think of who Rosethorn was without bringing Crane into the definition. The entanglement of their identities terrified her. They had to know who they were standing on their own, seeking their own light.

Crane wouldn't understand, Rosethorn knew. But she knew that when two strong trees grew too close together, one would have to die for the other to survive. She wouldn't sacrifice herself and she couldn't sacrifice him.


	12. Torn

_You ain't leaving without a fight and I think I am just as torn inside._ Where I Stood, Missy Higgins.

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><p>She tried to stand firm as she told him that they were not going to be together anymore. The confusion on his face nearly broke her resolve, but she set herself firmly.<p>

She had reasons for not being with him, good reasons that she had repeated to herself over and over again while she tried to sleep.

But when his voice broke in the middle of his question, and he closed his eyes to steady himself, she took a step towards him, her arm outstretched. He was breaking her heart...

But, no. She had reasons for not being with him, good reasons.

When he opened his eyes, she was in the same place she had been when he closed them, and her arms were crossed over her chest.


	13. Beg

_Ask me if I'll beg you to stay and I'll beg you to stay. _Beg you to Stay, Smile Smile.

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><p>There were more silences between them now than there had ever been when they were just Niva and Isas, promising students and broken path-breakers and port-in-a-storm all wrapped up into one relationship that was never soft edges or soothing words but which had <em>worked<em>. Except Crane could see it all coming apart as he stared at her standing in his greenhouse, her famous withering glances directed at anything but him, and not all that withering at all as she bit her lip hard and blinked her too-bright eyes.

He would do anything for this woman who had held him together through the worst of their work on human essences, who had made him think of more than the narrow world he had grown up in, who had bared her soul to him and _dared_ him to try and break it, and who had captured him so completely in her endless bravery and talent and defiance.

He would say anything to make her stay with him.

But she didn't ask, and he never said.


	14. The Dubious Uses of Anger

Her temper got the better of her as she and Crane raged against each other. He accused her of things she had never thought of, she called him things she had never put to his name in her head, ever, until finally, spent with anger, she declared that they were over, they had never been and he agreed vehemently.

Later that night, she knew he stood just outside her room, his fist and then his forehead resting against the door. The wood sang with his presence, even dead as it was, and Rosethorn had to grip her sheets with both hands to keep from getting up and running to him.

She had never wanted to hurt him, but she wouldn't forget how he had jumped to all those conclusions about why she was ending their relationship. If her anger didn't keep the tears from coming as she heard him, finally, move away from her door without knocking, then at least it kept her warm.


	15. More Than I Could

_She will love you more than I could; she who dares to stand where I stood._ Where I Stood, Missy Higgins.

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><p>Crane ran a finger along the waxy leaf of a southern cactus and waited for the pain to come. He knew that she wasn't his anymore, though she had never been <em>his<em> in a way anyone in his family would have ever understood. But it had worked, at least for him. He had been happy with all of her sharp edges and her temper and the biting impatience because it came hand in hand with all the softness and warmth and passion he had seen in her when no one else did.

Now, someone else did. He hadn't ever spoken to this Dedicate Lark before, but he knew of her. He wouldn't have believed someone so soft spoken and temperate could survive Rosethorn, let alone love her, but he was wrong. Because something in that woman had softened the Rosethorn he knew. _She _didn't have to put up with the temper to get the passion, or the sharp edges for the softness the way he had had to.

He wondered if Rosethorn loved her more than she had loved him.

Crane sat in the earth of his greenhouse as the pain came.


	16. Even Though

A/N We're into the events of Sandry's Book now. :)

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><p><em>And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah. <em>Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen.

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><p>It was years before he felt whole again. She had owned a piece of his heart since he was seventeen years old, through so many of the greatest and most difficult moments of his life, that letting her go was the hardest thing he had ever done, and forgetting her was impossible.<p>

Not that he walked around Winding Circle moping. He had work to do, after all.

From the way they fought when they did see each other, Crane knew it was obvious that they weren't finished with each other, not after the bitterness of their goodbye.

But when he thought about her, it was more likely about her wide eyes the first day she spent at Winding Circle, or the way she had grinned when she woke him up with a kiss, or how she had thrown herself into his arms, knocking him to the ground and kissing him senseless when the human essences had finally, _finally_ worked.

And he knew he would never regret her.

But he wouldn't let her off the hook for letting _that student_ of hers steal his _shakkan_, either.


	17. Coming Back to Me

A/N Another jump forward. The beginning of this scene can be found in Briar's Book, after Rosethorn and Briar return from quarantine to work with Crane in the greenhouse, and Tris has joined them as his secretary.

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><p><em>I banished every memory you and I have ever made, but when you touch me like this and you hold me like that I just have to admit that it's all coming back to me.<em> It's All Coming Back to Me Now, Meat Loaf.

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><p>Briar and Tris looked at her for permission to join the novices in the dining hall after their success in finding the first key to the blasted disease that was tearing Summersea apart. She nodded and watched them walk away with the small group of excited students. They didn't know how much work still had to be done, how much could still be lost, and she didn't want to disillusion them. Not tonight. Tomorrow, it may all fall down around their feet, but for tonight she would let them celebrate as if it had been a success.<p>

"I am going to go into my office and plan for tomorrow, if you..."

Rosethorn nodded and fell into step beside him, walking around the building. "I suppose we should try the other combinations we put together this morning," she said.

"And perhaps some more willow in a few of the vials –"

"Because the fever is the most dangerous part, but we should concentrate on the interaction –"

"Between the magic and the disease? Then perhaps bringing cinnamon bark into the equation –"

"Would provide some sort of barrier between that and the illness itself? It's worth a try."

They entered the office and sat, their sighs mirroring each other.

"I have missed this part of it."

"The exhaustion?" Crane asked, his eyes closed.

"No." Her voice was much closer, and Crane looked up to see her standing in front of his chair. "The way we work together. I had convinced myself that it was all rivalry and competition, but it wasn't. It worked when we worked together." She crouched down in front of him, her knees touching his so their eyes were on level. "I didn't realise how much I had missed you, Isas."

"You realise that you are exhausted, under a great deal of stress, and looking for comfort in what feels familiar to you," he asked, preventing himself from leaning forward.

One eyebrow rose mockingly. "Crane, you can be _such_ an idiot sometimes." She leaned forward to kiss him.

He met her, eagerly, half-way.


	18. Forgive

_If you forgive me all this... If I forgive you all that... We forgive and forget and it's all coming back to me now._ It's All Coming Back to Me Now, Meat Loaf.

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><p>The way they fit together had always seemed miraculous to her. As if they weren't meant for anyone else.<p>

Even though she knew this wasn't true – knew there was someone else who fit her perfectly with soft curves and smooth skin and tender hands – it was still magic when they curled together in the safety of his room, away from all the dangers and suffering that they faced outside this small sanctuary.

It had been a long time, and he wasn't soft curves and smooth skin and tender hands, but she and Crane still seemed to fit, sharp edges and pride and bitter rivalry somehow forming a jigsaw piece that refused to clash and bump, but instead locked them together into this perfect moment.

His long fingers brushed along her forehead, tucking hair behind her ears.

She knew he wouldn't apologize for the hard words that were spoken when she decided it was time for their relationship would end, and it didn't matter.

She knew he would never ask her to say she regretted leaving him, and as she shifted to put her head on his chest, she knew he didn't feel the need to.

It was unsaid, like so many of their understandings. But they fit together in forgiveness as well as in love, and it kept them safe for one night more.


	19. Breathe

A/N Rosethorn has been infected with the pox.

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><p><em>Cold, cold water surrounds me now and all I've got is your hand. <em>Cold Water, Damien Rice.

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><p>Rosethorn struggled to breathe.<p>

She knew that this was going to be the worst of it, and that it would get much _much_ worse before it all... ended... but she was concentrating too hard on trying to catch a full lungful of air around the racking coughs that crippled her to fear it... too much.

Even as she tried to tell herself that, she struggled to give her lungs what they were beginning to painfully demand, and she began to panic before she felt the hands on her face.

"Just relax. You know it will pass if you accept it, though it is just like you to be defiant at a time like this," the familiar voice drawled. Rosethorn didn't know whether she wanted to smile, growl, or cry, but the Pox that was going to kill her took the choice away.

She clung to the hands of her oldest friend and struggled to breathe. The fact that those hands were there to hold shouldn't have mattered... but they meant all the difference in the world.


	20. Daja

A/N This is part of a four-part mini-series set sometime just after the events of Briar's Book in which the four discover Rosethorn and Crane's relationship. First off is Daja!

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><p>Daja had the least to do with Rosethorn and Dedicate Crane, which was probably why she was the first to notice it. They were sitting at the table in the kitchen arguing (as usual) while she sat in the corner unravelling spools of wire that had been salvaged from some project or another. Lark, in commiseration, perhaps, of the tediousness of Daja's afternoon, had joined her in organizing her threads and they sat together in silence as Rosethorn's voice rose to a yell and Crane continued to drawl in that way he had that seemed created solely to set Rosethorn off more.<p>

Daja glanced up, because of the noise, in time to see Rosethorn smack his hand as he made some snarky comment. He grabbed her fingers and raised them to his lips. Daja, startled, looked over at Lark who was also watching this exchange. She winked at the shocked look on Daja's face and went back to her work.

Daja tugged on the wire, straightening it out so that it wound neatly around the spool. _Well, _that_ explains... something. _She looked up at the table again to see that the fight had resumed. Rosethorn was jabbing at a page between them on the table while Crane shook his head. Daja sighed. Adults were incomprehensible.


	21. Sandry

A/N Part two with Sandry

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><p>Little Bear always seemed to sense when one of the cottage's residents rose for the day, and Sandry heard him clamber down the steps as soon as she emerged, still blinking sleep from her eyes, from her room on the main floor.<p>

"Yes, hello, Bear," she said, squatting down to scratch his ears. "Did you sleep well?"

Yawning, she stood and stretched and began to heat water and scoop out portions for their morning tea. No one slept late in Discipline – much to Briar's irritation – and the rest of the household would be up shortly.

A door opened and Sandry turned from the counter to ask Rosethorn which tea mix she wanted only to freeze as Crane slipped from Rosethorn's room and shut the door quietly behind him. He turned and saw her standing at the counter and froze as well as he tried to think of a conceivable excuse for him leaving at dawn.

Suddenly, Sandry grinned. "Are you staying for tea?"

Crane shook his head mutely, looked at her grin for a moment, sighed in resignation, and retreated from the kitchen in defeat. On the way out the door, he scratched Little Bear's ear absently and then was gone.

Sandry turned back to the counter in a much better temper. "He isn't as bad as he seems, is he, Little Bear?"

"Who isn't?" Daja asked as she came down the stairs.

Sandry giggled. "You won't even _believe..."_

"Try me," Daja said. "I saw _such_ an odd thing yesterday."


	22. Tris

A/N This one was fun; Tris's discovery

* * *

><p>Tris had studies with Crane in the morning, and took notes while he dictated. He was mostly inexpressive in everyday conversation, but when he taught he tended to pace back in forth in front of her desk, waving his long hands in delicate patterns as he sought the expressions that would best get his point across.<p>

Tris stopped writing to look up and sniff as he passed her desk the second time. By the forth pass, she was certain, but couldn't figure out how it could have happened.

"Why aren't you writing this?" he asked. She looked up at him, realizing that she had stopped writing in order to think.

"Does Lark do your laundry?"

"Of course not," he said in the mild tone that meant he was getting annoyed. "Why in the world would Lark do my laundry?"

Tris shrugged. "Why do you smell like the herbs she uses to wash the sheets in Discipline?"

Crane stared at her, before putting a hand to his forehead. "I think that's all I have for this morning," he said. Turning on his heel, he walked out of the room.

Tris collected her writing equipment and walked back to Discipline, puzzled. As she entered the cottage, and warded off Little Bear's enthusiastic welcome, both Daja and Sandry turned from the table to watch her questioningly.

Once Little Bear was quiet, Sandry asked, "Didn't you have lessons with Crane this morning?"

"He dismissed me."

"What?" Daja asked. "He _never_ lets you go early. What happened?"

"I asked him if Lark did his laundry because he smelled like the herbs she uses on our sheets and he walked out."

There was a beat of silence and then Daja and Sandry looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"What?" Tris asked over their peals of amusement. "What did I _say_?"


	23. Briar

A/N Briar, of course, is last to know.

* * *

><p>"Did you know that Rosethorn and Crane are... are <em>together<em>?"

From their various perches around the roof, the girls shared looks that mixed exasperation and amusement perfectly.

"Yes, Briar," Tris said in a superior tone that did not reveal how Sandry and Daja had had to spell it out to her. "We _were_ aware."

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"Why?" Daja asked reasonably as she leaned back onto the chimney and closed her eyes against the sun. "We knew you'd get upset."

"I'm not upset!" he yelled.

Sandry and Tris exchanged glances before laughing.

"Come up all the way and sit with us," Sandry said, controlling her giggles as he glared at them. He finished the climb onto the thatch, and sat beside her, sulking.

"I don't see how that could have happened when they don't even _like_ each other."

Sandry wrapped an arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder, still trying not to giggle as he continued to complain.


	24. Her Boy

They had decided, after many discussions that had degenerated rather quickly into shouting matches, that Crane's expertise would allow the boy to get a more rounded education. Which was how he found himself agreeing to teach the child two afternoons a week.

Afterward, he would suspect that she had argued so vehemently against it in order to get him to agree to it. The glint in her eyes as she grinned the first morning he and Briar spent together confirmed this.

Truthfully, though, he didn't _dislike_ the boy. He was clever and talented with plants and magic, and their time together went by quickly, as long as neither of them tried to initiate a conversation.

Those degenerated as quickly as Crane and Rosethorn's had ever done.

Crane wondered, though, why she would fight for him to teach Briar, trying to see what kind of punishment she was devising, until he watched them in the garden. He leaned on the gate for a moment before announcing himself, watching as she pointed out a weed the boy had missed - doubtless the reason he was late to Crane's lesson - but as Briar leaned forward, she let her hand rest on his black hair for a moment.

The look on her face as she looked down at the child was tender and fiercely devoted and Crane realized that she would do anything for the boy she loved like a son.

Over the next three years, Crane would teach Briar everything he could.


	25. Colder

A/N Jumping ahead once more.

* * *

><p><em>Have I still got you to be my open door? Have I still got you to be my sandy shore? Have I got you to cross my bridge in this storm? Have I still got you to keep me warm? <em>Grey Room, Damien Rice.

* * *

><p>Crane shivered as he finished the long walk back to his rooms. It had been a long day, and his weary mind drifted more than he had allowed it to in these recent months.<p>

_I will have to tend to the rest of the herbs tomorrow_, he thought wearily, _because they will not wait much longer, even in the greenhouse. _Then_ I will be able to look over the papers Osprey needed me to sign. After that perhaps I can stop by Discipline and ask Rosethorn to – _

He didn't get to finish the thought before he remembered that Rosethorn had left Winding Circle months ago, that she wasn't expected to return for years, that he was alone again and yet more alone than he had been since they were first introduced nearly two decades earlier. He had finally won her back, only to lose her again too soon, and the night seemed the colder for the lack of her.

The night was full of memories, but she was hundreds of miles away and he wrapped himself in his blankets and tried to keep himself warm.


	26. Finding Her in Silence

Crane was too busy, most of the time, to miss her. While teaching, attending council meetings, lecturing novices, and tending his greenhouse, there was too much going on to think about how long she had been away from Winding Circle.

It was the quiet moments he didn't enjoy. The ones where the silence seemed to ring without her barbs or sharp comments to fill them.

In those times, he would invariably find himself opening the gate to Discipline cottage. Lark's presence had always been comforting, and the cottage was almost peaceful without the frankly outrageous amount of noise the four children had been capable of producing.

There was comfort in the fact that there was one person who missed her as much as he did. They would sit together, chatting over the steam from their teacups, trying to fill the silence made up of all the people they missed.


	27. Warm

_I've still got me to keep you warm; warmer than warm. _Grey Room, Damien Rice.

* * *

><p>She looked a little lost when he found her, and that was the worst part.<p>

He looked so painfully happy to see her, and that was the worst part.

The best part was the way he cupped his hand around the curve of her face and told her that she really should stop neglecting herself, without a hint of pity or question of how the years abroad had damaged her.

The best part was the way she snapped at him, worse for the wear the world had put on her, but his Niva underneath all the same.

The very best part was how they still fit together as she tucked her head under his chin and his arms pulled her in tight and the years and the war and the endless seconds that had ticked away their time apart drifted away to let them have this one moment where their hearts beat together and it seemed like it would be all right again.

(And, yes, it would be all right again)

* * *

><p>AN The End. Thank you so much for reading!


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